


The Stars Watch Us From Heaven

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 05:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Genji is trying to distract himself from his father's recent passing at a Tanabata festival when he runs into a strange omnic who offers him compassion.





	The Stars Watch Us From Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> For Genyatta Week 2018, Prompt: Music/Dance.

“Haven’t you had enough?”

“Haven’t _you_ got anything better to do than complain about me?”

Genji chugged down another cup of sake and let his gaze wander over the crowd, ignoring Rikuto leaning next to him against the narrow bartop of the stall. The Tanabata street festival was in full swing. Long, colourful paper strips hung from bright lanterns all the way down the busy street and on the small plaza that laid in front of them, barely listenable indie bands played over people trying to have conversations.

Usually Genji would be out there goldfish scooping with some girl he planned to take to a love hotel or drunkenly hanging up tanzuku with idiotic joke wishes on bamboos, but tonight he was nailed to a stall selling overpriced alcohol. His father had died a week ago from an infection following pneumonia, which sounded like a cover-up when talking about a powerful Yakuza patriarch like him. You’d expect someone like him to go down with a bullet in his head or a dagger in his back, literally or not, but Hanzo had turned the hospital upside down and there was no proof of foul play.

This was probably where you’d say ‘that’s just life’ or something, Genji thought, trying to summon any sort of emotion, but the alcohol had stifled them all by this point. Good.

“Do you want to grab something to eat? I’m hungry!” Rikuto’s hostess friend tried, but Genji just shook his head.

“Well, we’re gonna have a look around, anyway,” Rikuto said. “Standing around here all evening is boring as fuck.”

“Then go already,” Genji snapped.

After he’d watched Rikuto leave with the hostess whose name Genji had forgotten the moment she was done introducing herself, he turned his attention back to the people in front of him. Some attempted to dance to the music, though even smashed as he was Genji could hear that the drummer only found what was supposed to be the beat half the time.

As he turned around to order another drink, he noticed an omnic stepping out of the shadows of an old shrine with its red paint peeling off weatherworn wood which stood in the dusk a few feet behind the stall. The bot wore mismatched, ill-fitting clothes, obviously patched several times over. Genji eyed him for a moment.

“What were you doing in there? Meditating?” he muttered. He was two cups of sake beyond not letting every other thought spill right out of his head. “That’s a funny program to have.”

“Is it? It seems like a good way to connect with humans. Many do it in one way or another, whether they are religious or not.”

The omnic turned to him. He looked friendly, kind of dovish with his eyes slanting down like that and no expression to offset the kind default look. Not that that meant anything. There were lots of omnics doing their own thing since the crisis and many of them weren’t too fond of humans.

“Uh-huh,” Genji made. “I guess you’ve gone rogue, then?”

“No. I work in a store down the road for my master,” the omnic said.

“Doesn’t it bother him that you run around here?”

The omnic pulled at his oversized sleeve, correcting its seat on his metal wrist.

“This time of night, he is usually about as drunk as you are right now, so I doubt he’ll notice.”

Surprising himself, Genji laughed.

“Well, you have to drink if you want to listen to _this_ music,” he said with a shrug.

“Can I ask why you are here if you don’t like it?” the omnic answered.

“Because here’s where they sell alcohol.”

The omnic regarded him for a moment.

“You drink to stand the music, but you only have to stand the music because you want to drink?” he clarified. “Are you sure there isn’t a different reason you’re drinking?”

“What would you know about that, tin can?” Genji asked, slightly unnerved, not because the omnic had unravelled his failing drunken logic, but because he even cared enough to do it. “You can’t drink.”

“You’re right. I didn’t mean to pry.”

The omnic turned back to watch the next heap of hopeful university students climb the wooden podium and set up at the instruments. Odd thing, Genji thought, looking the omnic up and down. Or maybe Genji was the one who was odd. Normal people probably did express concern if someone behaved like he did right now, but Genji’s friends and acquaintances were all criminals. Those born high into the hierarchy were often callous and disinterested, and the social climbers weighed each question and sentence against their expectations of how much favour they could gather with it. Since Genji lashed out at anyone mentioning his father’s death, they’d stopped trying to push the topic at all.

Not that he had a great desire to talk to anyone about his father’s death; not that he was stupid enough to look for compassion with a bunch of thieves and murderers, either, because that’d be like showing his throat to a pack of wolves. There was nothing to talk about, anyway. It would have almost been easier if he had been killed. What was there to say about an old man dying from illness?

There was a quiet clicking noise he picked out through the dissonant music. Genji saw the robot tapping his foot against the stone ground.

“You must not listen to a lot of music if you’re enjoying this,” he muttered.

“The radio is on a lot in the store,” the omnic answered. “But this is different. I like the energy. Everyone is so engaged, dancing and laughing. The shrine has the same draw for me. It releases something within people. That doesn’t usually happen in a supermarket.”

The omnic sounded genuinely happy and Genji wondered what it was like, being stuck in a chain store all day and sleeping – or recharging – in the storage closet at night. Sounded like a shit life, to be honest, and Genji could sympathise with feeling like shit right now.

“Do you want to dance?” Genji asked, impulsively.

“I don’t know how people would react to an omnic dancing by himself. Tensions are still quite high,” the omnic said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin anyone’s fun.”

“We’ll pretend I’m your owner,” Genji said as he slammed his sake cup down on the counter and grabbed the omnic’s metal hand, pulling him along despite his protests.

He’d danced with a couple of omnics before, sexbots in novelty clubs some of his friends liked to hang out at, not steel-and-wires types like this one who looked like he could have been built out of the leftover materials on a construction site. His waist was pretty tiny, though, so he had a figure, giving Genji an idea where to place his hands.

“You’re a strange man,” the omnic said.

Genji turned them and the omnic almost stumbled over Genji’s boots. Genji gave a wry grin.

“It’s been a strange week,” he gave back.

The omnic managed to match his steps now and while he obviously didn’t really know how to dance, he probably looked more graceful than Genji, who thought he might have equal amounts of blood and alcohol in his body at this point. Somehow, between his inexperience and Genji’s inebriation, the omnic managed not to step on Genji’s toes once. He moved almost as if he was floating.

The band had started out with some up-tempo pop crap, but picked a ballad next, presumably to prove their artistic chops. It was syrupy, low-key fare with the underwhelming singer crooning about loss and loneliness, so vague you couldn’t even tell whether the song was about a death or a break-up.

Genji felt his throat close up from one moment to the next and hated himself for it. Quickly, he hugged the robot to himself so he wouldn’t see the tears making Genji’s vision blurry. Fucking idiots on the stage. It wasn’t even a good song.

The omnic hugged him back. His chest was warm, probably the machinery working inside. They just stood there for a while until Genji had swallowed his sobs and then abruptly separated himself and hurried towards the street, away from the plaza. The omnic followed.

“Thank you,” he said, carefully, “for dancing with me. I’ve never done that before.”

“No problem,” Genji muttered, voice still raspy.

The omnic clasped his hands behind his back.

“I wish I could help you,” he said.

“I don’t need help.”

But he had liked hugging the omnic. He had seemed kind of silently understanding even though of course he had no idea what was going on. Genji sighed. Suddenly, he felt way too sober considering all the sake he’d put in his system over the last hour.

“Anyway… my brother wanted me home early tonight.” Alone, as Hanzo had specified. That could only mean stern talks about family matters. “Maybe I’ll see you again. The supermarket down this street, right?”

“That’s right,” the omnic said and he sounded like if he could, he’d smile. “I look forward to it.”

Genji never visited the supermarket because that evening, his brother had not talked at all and not listened, either, even as he put his blade to Genji’s throat and Genji screamed at him to stop.

However, Genji did see the omnic again eventually.


End file.
